


The Way Finds You

by kintsugis



Series: Mazecraft (MCYT AU) [1]
Category: Hermitcraft, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Not RPF, Worldbuilding, idk how else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26103721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kintsugis/pseuds/kintsugis
Summary: Slow days are few and far in between, but during a short trip for supplies, Grian and Mumbo find themselves reminiscing about the past and talking about the future in a place where one's paths are not always guaranteed with safe travel.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Mazecraft (MCYT AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895263
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	The Way Finds You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm writing this oneshot to kickstart my MCYT AU called "Mazecraft", where the whole world takes place in one huge labyrinth with one exit: the End. Several different Minecraft Youtubers/Streamers will be featured other than those in Hermitcraft. 
> 
> If you would like to keep track, I'll be making art for this AU on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/tealeafraven). I'll also include this in a [series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895263) as these oneshots may or may not be interconnected with one another. I haven't decided if there will be one main linear story for the whole AU yet. We'll see!
> 
> If you like my writing, leave a kudos or a comment! Any support goes a long way. Thank you!

“Did you ever think about leaving the maze?”

Mumbo stopped just short of the final hit to a chunk of redstone. He turned to Grian, who was sat cross legged on the grass by a river, one hand on a fishing rod and the other rested on his chin. His view was directed to his task, but the silence was enough to show that he was waiting for an answer. Mumbo shrugged in reply.

“Well… yes,” Mumbo answered simply, turning back to the wall to chip off the remaining ore off of it. It crumbled unto the ground and Mumbo took the time to shift between the mounds of debris for the redstone.

“I’ve thought about it a few times.”

Something splashed, and a yelp followed it. Mumbo glanced back again to see Grian holding his head in pain with a salmon flopping to his right. He couldn’t hold in a chuckle, to which Grian responded with a huff before smiling and laughing along with him.

“Why do you ask?” Mumbo asked as he stashed the remaining redstone into his last pouch before throwing it in with the others in a larger satchel. 

“Just curious.”

A couple of bags worth of redstone were in them, and a good amount of it was fought off near a spider’s den. It was completely unintentional to be that close to a mob spawner, but you would never know what’s on the other side of a corridor until you make the turn. Maybe one of the other Hermits could put it to good use, assuming one would be interested and that Mumbo would remember the path to it. The reminder of it made him shiver; he was just glad he and Grian made it out of there alive and intact.

“You know,” Grian spoke up, breaking Mumbo’s line of thought.

“Compared to the rest of you, I’m the newest addition to the Hermits. I didn’t think I’d get picked up by anyone here in the maze if I’m gonna be honest.”

“Two years is still a long time,” Mumbo assured him, slinging his satchel over his shoulder and walking over to take a seat to the left of Grian. The salmon that slapped his friend in the face was in the basket to Grian’s right.

“You’ve been here for… how long again?” Grian asked.

Before Mumbo could answer, Grian raised a hand and counted it on his fingers.

“Seven years?”

“I think it’s a little over seven years, yeah,” Mumbo confirmed.

Grian sighed, “That’s insane. To think that you all managed to live here and create a whole community out of it.”

“There’s others who have lived in the maze longer than us, but alone,” Mumbo noted, watching the bobber of the fishing rod dip into the water with a chime. With a skilled hand, Grian pulled back the line, and at the end of it was another decently sized salmon to be placed in the basket.

“The one in the green and white hat, yeah?” 

Mumbo nodded. With a yawn, he stretched his arms and laid down on the grass, arms rested behind his head as he watched the trees sway with the wind. The weather was rather pleasant—a bright and sunny day with no clouds in sight, even after a few days of consecutive rain showers. Spects of phantoms made their patrol across the skies, and the distant howls of wolves echoed. It was a constant reminder that they weren’t the only inhabitants of the labyrinth.

“Do you think he’d join us if Xisuma asked him to?” Grian wondered, pulling the rod back to replace the bait on it.

“Possibly? I can’t say for certain,” Mumbo said.

“Never met him personally, but I’ve come across his bases. He’s got some serious dedication.”

“I think I used one of his portals on accident,” Grian chuckled sheepishly. 

“It got me home though, so I thank him for that. I hope he’s doing well.”

The conversation trailed off to silence with only the sound of the water and the wind between them. After a while, Grian started to hum a tune. Mumbo recognized it to be one of the patterns of the maze’s note block puzzles, but he didn’t remember the name of it. He would have to ask Grian about it later.

Grian’s question began bubbling in Mumbo’s mind once again. He only ever thought about leaving a few times, most of which were a joke. The times that he was serious, however, were during life-threatening situations. The first time Mumbo and his fellow Hermits encountered the maze wall deconstruction was one time; the feeling of pure terror and anxiety to what was happening was enough for him to think that it was the end. When the wall came crashing down they all thought the whole maze was going down, and that they were going to crumble with it. Thankfully everyone on that expedition made it out unscathed, but it left a mental scar on all of them. Another time he can remember is when the expedition group of False, Iskall, and Keralis came to his base in a close-to-death state, absolutely battered and injured. Apparently they got caught in a tangle with the Illagers, and right after they ran into a horde. Mumbo’s base was the closest (well, as close as “close” is in a maze), and the three of them barely made it out alive. Tending to their injuries broke his heart, and he highly considered bringing up the idea of leaving the maze and heading back out to the world outside of it.

But alas, seven years later, there he was laying beside his friend who the Hermits took in as their own just two years ago.

“If getting in and out of the maze was easy,” Mumbo piped up. Grian stopped humming, turning his attention to his friend.

“Would _you_ go?”

Grian was silent for longer than Mumbo expected. When Mumbo looked over, his friend’s face was lost in thought that even the bell chime of the fishing rod was ignored. A few days in the maze was already a lot, so to consider ever leaving a place you’ve been in for a while needed some thought.

“Only if we had to,” Grian stated firmly.

“Oh?”

“I’ve grown to like this place, believe it or not.”

The fishing rod was pulled back and placed to the side, and Grain laid down beside him. It was reassuring to be sitting under the same sky.

“If these two years have taught me anything, it’s that the Hermits have found a home in all this mess,” Grian laughed, raising his hand to block out the sunlight from his eyes. 

“Somehow, someway, we all do. It’s just the way of the maze, I guess: find your way, or the way finds you.”

Mumbo opened his mouth to reply but realized he had none. Grian’s words of wisdom weren’t a surprise to him—Grian was older after all, even if Mumbo was in the maze for longer—but they always hit close to home. It’s downtimes like these that he was thankful to have a friend to just relax with, even when the world around him always posed a threat.

“That’s got a good ring to it,” Mumbo noted.

“ _‘Find your way or the way finds you.’_ ”

“... I can’t take credit for it, that was from Joe.”

“Of course it is.”


End file.
